Tucker Carlson and Samaritans of Our Time

Tucker Carslon spoke in defense of the UOC. Photo: UOJ

The US media space is busy discussing the departure of Tucker Carlson, the main journalist of the Fox News channel. It might seem that this event has nothing to do with the religious life of Ukrainians, but this is not entirely true. Today, obvious repressions against the UOC are usually ignored in the world, notably in the United States. What can one say if, when asked directly about the persecution of the Church, representatives of the State Department answer that they are not aware of it. Perhaps the only authoritative person who spoke publicly and openly about repressions against the UOC was the journalist Tucker Carlson. He harshly criticized Zelensky several times for the actual persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. And thanks to his huge audience, a significant number of Americans learned about the situation with the Church in Ukraine. Let's remember how it was.

On December 10, 2022, the journalist spoke sharply about Zelensky due to mass searches of the SBU in the churches and monasteries of the UOC.

“Zelensky’s secret police have raided monasteries across Ukraine, even a nunnery, and arrested dozens of priests with absolutely no evidence and in clear violation of the Ukrainian Constitution, which matters nothing now. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is over a thousand years old. And with the full support of the Joe Biden administration and the US Congress, Zelensky decided to ban it,” Carlson said at the time.

He stated that most of the American media ignored Zelensky's actions, and some even found excuses for this due to military actions.

However, Tucker Carlson stressed that there is no excuse for this at all. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church is not Russian, it is Ukrainian. It is not associated with the Putin government. The UOC even officially condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So, once again: there is no justification for the destruction and prohibition of this Church! Yet many prominent Zelensky supporters in the West have said nothing about it, although it’s about time.

On December 23, the journalist reiterated that the President of Ukraine "bans the Christian denomination, arrests priests, seizes monasteries and churches."

And in mid-March, when the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine had already announced the expulsion of the UOC from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Carlson released a whole story about the UOC.

“It’s pretty surprising because when you look at the situation, they are ejecting monks from the 11 century monastery, and there saints buried beneath this church. You don’t’ see this type of behavior in liberal democracies. And so you think – those who held Zelensky out as a particular hero, who cheered him, who assured this is someone that we need to support, we need to throw our support behind, as Christians would now be questioning his particular actions, and we really don’t see that. There has been a total silence as he has begun what can in many ways be called persecution of members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Faith. So why is that silence there?” wondered Carlson then.

In turn, his colleague Megan Basham expressed bewilderment why Christian leaders and large Christian resources, such as Christianity Today, are silent about the repressions of the UOC.

More than a month has passed since the Fox News plot, during which time the situation around the UOC has deteriorated significantly. And it seems that the departure of Tucker Carlson from the channel closed the last objective source of truth about the UOC for the Americans. Now the official position of the State Department, which was directly involved in the creation of the OCU and, consequently, the situation in which the UOC has ended up today, will finally triumph.

But how did it happen that in a country of unanimous “approvals”, where only the position of Zelensky and Dumenko was broadcast, a person suddenly sutfaced who spoke out harshly against this general approval? Of course, one can say that Carlson is a supporter of the conservative party and hence harshly criticizes everything related to the projects of the Democrats. Still, this is not the whole answer.

Firstly, the OCU was created under the Republican Trump, and secondly, the resentment of lies and injustice is the position of Tucker Carlson himself.

In his keynote address on the occasion of the Heritage 50th anniversary celebration, the journalist said, in particular, that telling the truth makes you strong and brave; telling lies makes you weak and cowardly. But some people pay too high a price for speaking the truth – they become outsiders, they are driven out of social groups, whatever these groups may be. Anyway, the one who speaks the truth is a hero in his eyes. Tucker Carlson admitted he wasn’t raised as Christian but that doesn’t prevent him from calling a spade a spade and assessing outcomes of whatever it may be. Always. According to him, if abortion and transgender become a major policy, and those in power rant about it, then it’s not a political movement, but an evil. Because there is no positive outcome in such policies – they result in the destruction of society.

Speaking about the antinomy of truth and falsehood, Carlson approaches the notions of good and evil – the main issues due to which a person turns to God and lets the Church in his/her life.

“Of course, good and evil relate to specific theological terms. But basically this is about what conditions they produce, what is their final product. Good is characterized by order, peace, tranquility, calm, non-conflict, cleanliness – cleanliness is next to godliness. It’s true, it is. And evil is characterized by their opposites – violence, hate, disorder, division, disorganization, and filth,” says Carslon.

“If you are all in on the things that produce the latter basket of outcomes, what you are really advocating for is evil. That’s just true. I am not calling for religious war; I’m only calling for the acknowledgment of what we are watching. I’m not serving the back of the Republican party … I’m just noting what is super-obvious …Those are manifestations of some larger force acting upon us. It’s completely obvious. And I think two things:

1. We should say that and stop engaging in these totally fraudulent debates.
2. Maybe we should all take just like 10 minutes a day to say a prayer about it.”

And at the end of his speech, Carlson says the following: “I am saying that to you not as some kind of evangelist. I am literally saying that to you as an Episcopalian, the Samaritan of our time … But even I have concluded – it might be worth taking just 10 minutes out of your busy schedule to say a prayer for the future. And I hope you will."

Paradoxically, the words of this unchurched person can serve as an illustration of what is happening today around the Kyiv Caves Lavra, the cathedral in Kamyanets-Podilsky or the “corridor of shame” for the UOC in Ternopil. When, on the one hand, people scream and grimace, demanding the expulsion of believers from the shrine, and on the other, the believers themselves meekly pray to God. Carlson intuitively comes to the conclusion on which side should be a person for whom honor, truth and morality are not just lip service.

Of course, after reading all these words, quite naive for Christian teaching, a churched person can say that we are “creating an idol for ourselves.” But the question is much more comprehensive.

Recent years have shown that the picture of the world, which only yesterday seemed unshakable in Orthodoxy, is being destroyed today. The head of the most authoritative Local Church, for the sake of undivided power and his own ambitions, destroys Orthodox unity and launches the processes of destruction of hundreds (and soon possibly thousands) of communities.

And so it may turn out that the gospel question “Who is your neighbor?” will sound in a new way for the Orthodox.

Indeed, before our eyes, a modern visualization of Christ's parable about the good Samaritan can take place. We can see modern “Levites” and “priests” passing by in disgust or turning away from the Orthodox people, who are beaten and slurred by today's robbers.

At the same time, there are many thousands, and maybe even millions of people, conventional “Tuckers Carlsons”, who intuitively feel the truth of the Logos and internally yearn for it. All they need is some kind of push for a chrysalis to turn into a butterfly. Perhaps the journalist did not accidentally call himself “the Samaritan of our time.”

The fact that the Orthodox of Ukraine today, as in ancient godless times, are compelled to defend their faith, is the preaching of Christianity to many people in the United States, Europe and other regions. The eyes of many people, who reject the picture of the world being imposed on them now, are pinned to the UOC faithful today. And it may happen that the very “little flock”, about which Christ spoke, will consist of these people tomorrow.

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